Vacation Souvenirs - How to Make Your Own Vacation Souvenir T-Shirt

Finding souvenirs on family vacations can be expensive. Not to mention, finding a t-shirt that fits your own personal style and taste is often a real challenge. Luckily, it's easy to make your own vacation souvenirs with the photos you took on vacation.

With this easy DIY project, you can create a one-of-a-kind shirt that showcases the actual places you visited instead just the t-shirt options available at the gift shops. If you hiked to a beautiful location, consider showing a group of three elements along the hike on your t-shirt. Choose any of the images you enjoy and use those to tell your vacation story on your true, original t-shirt.

Materials Needed for Creating Vacation Souvenir T-Shirts

To make your own vacation souvenirs you will need a clean, white t-shirt, iron on transfers that will work in your color printer, computer, iron, ironing board, printer and digital images you would like to feature on your t-shirt.

Recommended Software for Designing Your Vacation T-Shirt

Most packages of iron-on transfers recommend software for creating your t-shirt designs. However, it is not necessary to have expensive software on hand to create original designs that capture the essence of your family vacation. Programs such as Microsoft Word can be used to create great looking, original designs.

To use Microsoft Word to create your designs, simply insert your digital image you intend to use into a standard document. You can click on the image to adjust the image color, contrast, brightness and other elements. You can also change the image color to black and white for added interest. To add text to the t-shirt layout, simply add a text box and input the desired text for your vacation t-shirt design.

Printing on an Iron-on Transfer Sheet to Make Vacation Souvenir T-Shirt

Once you have finalized your design, print a sample of the design out on regular paper. Use this as a template to determine if the design is appropriately sized for the t-shirt the design will be affixed to. Once you are satisfied with the design look and size, you are ready to print the design on the iron-on transfer paper.

Carefully follow the directions included with your iron-on transfer sheets. If you are including text with your image, be sure to print the iron on transfer by utilizing the mirror setting on your printer. This will reverse the text so it will read correctly once printed on the shirt.

Once you have printed your design on the iron-on transfer, you are ready to iron the design onto the t-shirt. Carefully follow the instructions included with the iron-on transfer sheets. Time required for ironing on the transfer varies, but I do recommend affixing the transfer for the maximum time identified on the instructions. Not ironing the transfer long enough often results in a poor transfer which leaves you with unsatisfactory results.

After ironing on the transfer, let it cool as instructions state and gently remove the transfer backing. Once the backing is removed your vacation souvenir t-shirt is ready to wear.

Creating your own vacation souvenirs is easy with a little creativity and imagination. These original designs will let you relive your favorite vacation moments all year long.